Quick Takes: Content Marketing and Media News for 12/7/17

MEDIA

Marvel is expanding its cross-media efforts to podcasts, partnering with Stitcher on a scripted podcast featuring Wolverine.

Hollywood studios are hoping digital lockers such as Ultraviolet, Movies Anywhere and a few other initiatives will keep people buying physical home video releases at the same time they’re both adjusting their tactics in working with existing streaming services and launching their own.

Cool that major media organizations seem to be following the advice of right-wing dirtbags on who to fire and why. Thankfully NBC reversed that decision and rehired Seder, admitting that it acted rashly and without fully contemplating the matter.

More details on the staff purge at Cracked here, including how the site’s previous “pivot to video” last year didn’t pay off as hoped and left the company in even worse straits than before.

Shouldn’t really surprise anyone that those on Reddit don’t take the time to read the articles they vote either up or down, relying on the headlines and the handles of the people who have shared them. It’s a common problem across the web and just one of many reasons why engagement-based algorithms are problematic. Not only is it simple to “Like” something without really reading it for a variety of reasons but it’s the easiest kind of engagement to fake with a bot.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I’m hard-pressed to put into words what a bad idea Facebook’s new Messenger Kids, a “lite” version of the communications app that is meant for those aged 6 to 12, is. I understand that kids of that age are already often owning phones and are pressuring their parents to let them talk with their friends. I even get the argument that it’s better to give them a “safe” onramp to the online world when they’re young since that’s the world they’ll be living in. It doesn’t mean you should do it. While Facebook has said they’ll comply with child safety guidelines, it’s hard to imagine the company won’t still collect whatever information it can about usage, information that will transfer over to their “adult” profiles when the time is right. If you’re cool with your kid being monitored by an unaccountable non-government private company, go for it.

Instagram has introduced a couple new ways to archive and save Stories, which is exactly what you weren’t supposed to be able to do with Stories because no one wanted an archive anymore isn’t that what we were told as all these ephemeral messaging apps started showing up? It’s also testing a standalone app for its Direct messaging feature, meaning Twitter would once more be on its own in not breaking out messaging from publishing.

TECHNOLOGY

Sprout Social has acquired social analytics company Simply Measured. The buyer combines both reporting and publishing CMS capabilities, whereas the buyee has been a pure-play analytics and reporting tool, one much more fully-featured that Sprout Social’s offering.

Google is still tracking Android users’ whereabouts, even when those users have turned off location services. That news, while disturbing on its own, is reported to have been supplied by tech rival Oracle, which is using the media as a weapon in its ongoing battle with Google.